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Lost Watercourses and Resacredization

I like the word Resacradization. Here in the mountains where i live the streams are pretty much free flowing. The gun club up stream temporarily dams Board Run that flows past me to stock with trout for kids to fish, which i disagree with, but the trout escape and come down here to my deeper pools and i have it posted No Trespassing so they can’t come down to get them back so the rainbow trout live free here and reproduce LOL. The Nagas/Naginis of the water are sacred to me as you know. I have a low wood bridge that is attached to a chain which i call my Zen bridge as when the water rises it just breaks free and floats to the right then i can winch it back into place, having had three bridges wash away the last 12 years. Live and learn. Nothing can resist the flow of water as you know. In the small town near me the culverts are open for the mountain waters to flow into the half million year old rivers that were from the glacial melts and here before the old old old Appalachian mountains. Live and learn. Blessings on your efforts as a Druid bard Pagani to break the dams politically. I am a little more eco-radical here but cannot write about that……

The watercourses of my local landscape were once considered very sacred. The river Ribble was venerated by the Romano-British people as Belisama ‘Most Shining One’ ‘Most Mighty One’. The boundaries of the settlements of Penwortham and Preston were defined by freely flowing streams whose deities would have been regarded as powerful guardian spirits.

Life depended on clean, pure water drawn from wells rising from underground sources. Rows of women queued on Petticoat Alley to collect their morning’s fill. Many wells possessed miraculous and healing properties. Ladywell and St Mary’s Well were important sites of pilgrimage. Mineral springs on New Hall Lane were renowned for curing eye ailments.

The brooks that form the perimeters of Penwortham can still be walked. However not a single glimpse of fresh free flowing water can be seen in Preston anymore. Every water course has been culverted. They can be traced by following signs: Syke Hill…